Minimum Wage At Most A Side Issue

Welcome insights to the minimum wage were offered by Zachary Janowski and David Urbanik in Sunday's Courant [May 18, op-eds, "A Minimum Wage Is The Problem"; "Higher Wages Boost Economy"].

As Janowski says, "the minimum wage is a great feel-good issue." However, as economist Robert Reich (and many others) have said, inequality is, far and above, the real issue for the economy.

We need to leave the Land of Oz and step back into the real, physical world. A world where money, rivers of money, are flowing toward capital, not flowing toward rewarding productivity.

If, as Urbanik points out, the real minimum wage is at a 50-year low, why are we even talking and writing about raising it -- a virtually useless exercise in an economy headed for the civil disobedience economist Thomas Piketty is predicting.

Most Western economies have a minimum wage policy, and if it makes us feel good, well, why not? But we must realize that the real battle is on another level entirely.